Howard Nemerov

Style - Poem by Howard Nemerov

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Flaubert wanted to write a novelAbout nothing. It was to have no subjectAnd be sustained upon the style alone,Like the Holy Ghost cruising aboveThe abyss, or like the little animalsIn Disney cartoons who stand upon a branchThat breaks, but do not fallTill they look down. He never wrote that novel,And neither did he write another oneThat would have been called La Spirale,Wherein the hero's fortunes were to riseIn dreams, while his walking life disintegrated.

Even so, for these two booksWe thank the master. They can be read,With difficulty, in the spirit alone,Are not so wholly lost as certain worksBurned at Alexandria, flooded at Florence,And are never taught at universities.Moreover, they are not deformed by style,That fire that eats what it illuminates.